The sweet swell of her laughter was met with his own, such a rare and precious sound. Bewildered for a moment, the woman gazed up into Jefferson's good eye, her own laughter-filled emeralds still brimming with unshed tears. The sound of merriness melted from her as the scarred man rose his fingers to brush these unfallen crystals gently away - The touch seemed almost tender, and she felt strange in his arms, as though there were unsaid words between them.
He spoke again, and she listened this time, really listened. The woman's shamrock green remained fixated on the male's face, although her jovial smile had since faded. For a moment, the lovely Apothecary looked tired, so very tired. Her slender shoulders seemed weighted by his words. The distance opened up between them again as he withdrew his arm, and she felt a coldness that had nothing to do with the bitter weather.
A silence fell, and it seemed for a minute that the faded beauty would turn from him. She did not. "I forget sometimes, that you are not like the others." Accented voice was quiet, solemn, and her gaze dipped down now, down to her feet as though looking at him might provoke something more. Ivory hands folded like doves into one another, twisting restlessly to show her upset nature. "Its just that every time I find you, you've fallen a little more apart at the seams," She smiled, but it was wry, and faint upon sweet maw as she joked humorlessly about his missing limb. The smile grew slightly, fake, as her eyes dared to flash back up to him. "And I think, well! I'll just stitch him right back together again!" Because she knew she wasn't fooling him with her false bravado, the slender colliewoman's gaze dropped once more and she shrugged one shoulder listlessly. "Maybe I am selfish. Maybe I worry that one day, when I come looking for you, there... There will be nothing left to find, that you will have fallen all apart, and I will have nothing to stitch." It felt like a weak and foolish admittal, but she had the strong and irrational urge to leap at him, hug him tightly like a scared child might.
She may not have seen him frequently, but Jefferson was a building block of her world, and she couldn't seem to imagine an existence in this land without him.